


How to Win a Date At the Gym

by asrewrites



Series: Songfics by Asre [1]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Dating, F/M, First Dates, Gen, Meet-Cute, Song Lyrics, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-02 07:11:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17259845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asrewrites/pseuds/asrewrites
Summary: It was the year of songfics for me, though I didn’t write much and I’m still fighting with one that was supposed to be done yesterday. This is a Steve Rogers fic and the song is If You Had My Love – By Jennifer Lopez





	How to Win a Date At the Gym

It had been a bad idea. He’d known it from the time Natasha bounded up with Wanda in tow talking fast about cool new workouts and how he’d get exercise while learning about the current music and meeting people. He’d felt it in his gut and yet he’d let them bring him down to the local gym and sign him up for the class. Both of them had come with him into the room, acted like they were there with him for the workout and they’d promptly fucked off as soon as the music started.

_If you had my love and I gave you all my trust would you comfort me_  
And if somehow you knew that your love would be untrue would you lie to me  
And call me baby 

He hadn’t seen either of them since but Sam, Bucky, Clint and even Peter had rotated through on their memberships. Sam had gotten six dates out of it and Bucky had come, took one look at all the spandex and headed for the free weights. He at least came and left with him, even if he didn’t take the class.  He was pretty sure that this was another way for Nat to get him mixing and mingling with the single and available people of the world. She was hell bent on getting him a date, even if it killed him.

Not that the class was hard. He caught on to the rhythm pretty quickly, some of the steps took a bit longer but he didn’t really mind because he’d found you. You were a little lost and left-footed like him, so he felt a bit less like he was the only person unable to get the class right from the start. You were three rows up and to the left, but he could see you in the mirrors just fine. You giggled when you were nervous and watching you helped him catch onto things quicker. Maybe it was because you were facing the same way he was and the teacher wasn’t or maybe it was because he watched you more closely than he did the instructor.  It all worked out the same in the end.

It really wasn’t an awful class, there was a lot of body flexing and ‘booty popping’. He had no idea how in the world any of this gyrating would make people fitter or ‘in shape’ but it did cause him to break a sweat a time or two and he got to see you. Whether you wore the pants that said juicy across your butt, like several other women in the class, or you wore that oddly shiny white work out gear, he was always happy to see you there. After a few weeks, he’d learned all the songs pretty well, especially the one you seemed to know all the words to.

_Now if I give you me, this is how it's got to be_  
First of all I won't take your cheating on me  
Tell me who can I trust if I can't trust in you  
And I refuse to let you play me for a fool 

He’d managed to put it on his phone so he could listen to it where ever and when ever he wanted. Sometimes he would do the routine from class to it in his room while it played. Natasha wasn’t exactly subtle about her match making but she had at least gotten him out into the world and he was interacting with others even if he wasn’t ‘picking up’. Bucky said it was only a matter of time before he’d get the nerve to say something, but the class only went on for so long and he was almost out of time.

_You said that we could possibly spend eternity_  
See, that's what you told me, that's what you said  
But if you want me you'll have to be fulfilling all my dreams  
If you really want me baby 

He’d gotten up that morning intent on asking you to coffee or something simple. With Peggy it had been easy, she knew who he was inside and out and she was in charge. She took the lead and he followed because he wanted to. She would have taken no for an answer but he was never going to deny her anything. Now. Well, now he didn't know you at all. He’d have to take the chance that the Steve he was inside didn’t collapse if you took one look at the Steve he was on the outside and said thanks but no thanks. Oddly enough, as Captain America, he didn’t get a lot of rejection but he knew that a lot of the attention he got was superficial and it honestly didn’t interest him.

It did interest him that you’d always smiled and nodded at him when you caught his eye, but you’d never asked for a selfie, an autograph or even his number. People all over the gym had fussed and fallen over him but not you. You were polite when you bumped into him. You didn’t grab his ass or his arm and massage it in that uncomfortable way that he’d been told was supposed to be appreciative but made him wonder if the person doing it was going to slaughter him for a meal. And then there was Martine.

_If you had my love and I gave you all my trust would you comfort me_  
Tell me baby  
And if somehow you knew that your love would be untrue would you lie to me  
And call me baby 

Martine had decided that she wanted a date about 5 classes in and then she’d started her pursuit. It had started with her moving places so that she could talk to him. She didn’t really know what whispering was and so the entire class heard her attempts at chit-chat and occasionally she was shushed by other class-goers. It embarrassed him, not the attention but her total disregard for how he felt. She didn’t talk to him, she talked at him. She spoke only about herself, what she felt, wanted and thought. She didn’t ask him questions. Hell, she seemed satisfied to believe he was going to agree to a date no matter what he actually did or said. She was the only reason he was regretting his need to be here for every class because he paid for it.

At a few points, he’d actually run out of class as soon as it ended and hidden in the bathroom until he was certain that she was gone. It had only taken Bucky running into her once for him to fully support Steve in his need to avoid her, even if it meant she gave him a reputation as an unnaturally clean man; someone who showered to excess. Bucky had his back on this one, after making copious jokes about poor little inexperienced Steve before he met Martine. Not another joking word was said after that. Once Bucky met her he got all free and easy with the how to be stealthy and general avoidance tactics. Steve had never been so glad to know spies as when Bucky and Natasha had started training him in how to get away from Martine.

_You say you want my love and you got to have it all_  
But first there are some things you need to know  
If you wanna live with all I have to give  
I need to feel true love or it's got to end, yeah 

Along the way he’d noticed that you’d noticed the Martine development. He liked to believe that you were concerned that Martine was acting as she was. He wasn’t too proud to say or think that it would be nice if you were a little jealous that someone else was ‘moving in’ on him. He wasn’t sure what that meant but he liked the idea that you would care about him at all. He straight up lied about how he felt about you to anyone who asked but decided that there was no use in denying it when Wanda started to give him tips on how to talk to you.

_I don't want you tryin' to get with me and I end up unhappy_  
I don't need the hurt and I don't need the pain  
So before I do give myself to you I have to know the truth  
If I spend my life with you 

So there he was thinking about you as he and Bucky headed to the gym. He hoped Martine wouldn’t be there or that he would somehow find a way to get a spot closer to you in class this time. It was a popular class and he almost never went in early, too many people oohed and awed and fawned over him. He might never get used to that from strangers, even if he wouldn’t mind it from you. He was hoping he’d find something, anything at all that would give him a way to talk to you. One that was easier than him walking up to you to speak to you as Steve Rogers. Because he really was still little Steven Rogers, the sickly, uninteresting man that women had ignored, at heart. He might never really embrace what he looked like since he still felt like that determined scrapper from the ‘40’s who could be felled by a chill and rarely willingly left a fight.

People had tried to help him embrace his new body, and even though he appreciated it all, he really didn’t think any differently or believe anything that he hadn’t before. His moral were still the same, he still felt the same way about things and more than anything else he knew that at his core he’d always bee little Stevie Rogers fighting the good fight and wanting more than the world seemed ready to give him. In many ways, he didn’t want to outgrow who he’d been. Peggy knew him before and after and she never faltered in her kindness or interest. No one today would have that chance, to know him as he saw himself and how others saw him. They would only ever see the Captain and he knew he let that hold him back from connecting to others. He knew that excuse was not as good as he believed it was.

_If you had my love and I gave you all my trust would you comfort me_  
What would you do babe, tell me right now  
And if somehow you knew that your love would be untrue would you lie to me  
And call me baby  
Don't you lie to me 

He didn’t want to let his self-concept go just to have someone in his life. He also didn’t want to end up with only that sense of self to hold onto for the rest of his life. He had a building full of people that he worked with who were all working through some version of this issue and from what he could see it never got easier, it really came down to a choice in what someone wanted more. And right now he wanted to get to know you. Coffee or lunch and some conversation wouldn’t change his life too radically right? That was the thought running through his mind as he walked through the gym to class. He could hear the music playing already and wondered if he’d somehow missed a schedule change. He wondering if he should check his emails as he walked through the door, missing the sign saying the class was cancelled altogether.

_If you had my love and I gave you all my trust would you comfort me_  
Tell me baby  
And if somehow you knew that your love would be untrue would you lie to me  
And call me baby (don't you lie to me, baby) 

All he saw was you. You were moving along in a variation of the routine from class, but this version had much more of a salsa hip switch to it. Clint had been watching a lot of the world dancing championships lately, and for the most part the team sat around and watched too. He’d learned a bit about different dances in the passing days. He’d also become pretty familiar with the idea that anyone could learn to dance since Clint invariably followed up the professionals with the non-professionals of Dancing With the Stars.

_If you had my love and I gave you all my trust would you comfort me_  
Tell me baby  
And if somehow you knew that your love would be untrue would you lie to me  
And call me baby 

He watched you working up a sweat to the song he most associated with you and class. He even heard you singing along a bit, if he tried since his heart was pounding and so was the bass in the speakers. You spun around then, spotted him and jerked back as you clutched your chest with a shriek of surprise.  It jolted him from his trance and he stepped back, dropped his bag and then stepped forward, holding up his hands in a placating manner.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Jesus. Didn’t you see the sign? Class is cancelled,” you hissed as you leaned forward, hands to your knees as you took a deep breath. He felt bad for scaring you and without much thought, he stepped forward to console you.

“I’m really sorry. I heard the music and thought I was late. I didn’t see the sign,” he explained. You looked up at him, stopping his advance with a hand up of your own.

“It’s ok. I should have closed the door.” You shook your head and stood up fully. The music kept playing and Steve was not really concentrating on it as you smiled at him. “I’m sorry I shouted Captain Rogers.”

“You know my name,” he said simply. Of course you did. Everybody did.

“I work here and we were all told when each team member signed up so we could behave appropriately,” you said before looking at the floor as Jennifer Lopez sang on.

_If you had my love and I gave you all my trust would you comfort me_  
And if somehow you knew that your love would be untrue would you lie to me  
And call me baby  
If you had my love and I gave you all my trust would you comfort me  
And if somehow you knew that your love would be untrue would you lie to me 

“Oh, well I guess I should thank you for making me feel like any other patron,” he started and you cut him off with a shake of your head.

“No really, we all owe you an apology. We all saw how Martine’s been behaving but we didn’t do enough to keep her from harassing you. No one could figure out how to get her to back off without pretending to be your girl or boyfriend and since,” you rambled and Steve laughed. When he did you looked at him wide-eyed and he just smiled more.

“I’d be ok with you doing that,” he said and you blinked at him a few times before you smiled back.

“Really?”

“Well, maybe we could go to coffee first. Give the ruse a good backstory?”

“I’d like that,” you said and bounced on your feet a little. “Maybe we’ll hit it off and then it won’t be a lie for long?”

“Maybe,” he answered as he held his hand out for you to take so you could head out to coffee. You both smiled as you walked out of the room, stopping briefly for Steve to grab his bag along the way. You both nodded to Bucky as you left the gym, and he almost dropped the free weight he held on himself in shock at seeing Steve with the object of his affections. Steve briefly hoped that Bucky would be ok and that Martine wouldn’t somehow set her sights on anyone else in the gym as he held the door open for you to start your first date.


End file.
